CIT Group names Scott T. Parker new CFO

FINANCE

David Henry, Bloomberg News

Published 4:00 am, Sunday, July 4, 2010

CIT Group Inc. named Scott T. Parker, a former executive at Cerberus Capital Management LP, as chief financial officer, ending a search that heated up after John Thain was hired to lead the business lender from bankruptcy.

Parker, 43, replaces Joseph "Joe" Leone, who had said at the end of the company's bankruptcy in December that he would retire in April after 25 years at CIT. Thain has now filled five finance positions since being named chairman and chief executive officer on Feb. 7.

"Scott's unique set of financial and operational skills coupled with his deep experience in the financial services sector will complement our senior leadership team and benefit our organization on a broad scale," Thain, 55, said in a statement today.

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CIT, based in New York, also named Carol Hayles, 49, as senior vice president and corporate controller, reporting to Parker. Hayles spent the past 24 years in finance roles at Citigroup Inc., where she was most recently deputy controller, CIT said.

Parker was most recently chief operating officer and CFO of Cerberus Operations and Advisory Co. LLC, an affiliate of Cerberus Capital Management. Before joining Cerberus in 2006, he spent 17 years in the industrial and financial services businesses at General Electric Co.

The names of senior executives had to be submitted to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York prior to their appointments, according to the company's annual report, which said the requirement is part of an agreement with the regulator from August 2009.

CIT has been paying down expensive debt and reducing its assets this year. At the same time, Thain has held initial talks with regulators about eventually getting permission to accept more insured deposits to lower the company's cost of funding.

"This is sort of still cleaning up the mess," said Gary Goldstein, founder and president of Whitney Group, an executive search firm, before the announcement.